kids these days

john eden

male pale and stale
Sorry to interrupt, but wtf is up with this? On the estate I live in, the lifts get mopped every day, but by the end of the day BOTH lifts are pissed in. I really wish I understood how this happens, or the psychology of someone who pisses in a lift.

The lifts are tiny, so you're likely to get piss all over your shoes, and then also there is a good chance the doors will open and someone will see you pissing in a lift. I understand being drunk as fuck probably helps alleviate both of these concerns, but surely the bushes 10ft from the lift through the door would be a better option.

WHAT IS IT ABOUT LIFTS THAT IS SO CONDUSIVE TO PISSING GOD DAMN IT?!

Man we could have a whole new thread on this one... my block is quite small so no lift, but I swear I would rain down serious violence if I ever saw someone in the act in any of the other blocks I visit.

We did have someone shit in our entrance hall tho, and the stairs get it occasionally.

It HAS to be about being an anti-social cunt who wants everyone to suffer, doesn't it? Normally I like to try and find other reasons, but not for this...
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
The pissing/shitting thing (along with graffiti, litter, vandalism etc.) must come from a sense of non-ownership; the feeling that the place where you live is just a physical piece of stuff rather than someone's home, and indeed your own home.

I mean, I can see that if you're an antisocial little bastard you might want to go over to someone else's home and smash windows, piss in lifts etc., but why the hell would you do it to your own estate? You're degrading your own living environment as much as anyone else's. Unless you happen to enjoy the smell of your own piss, or something.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
no more than a Sick Media Obsession with DEAD KIDS distorting perceptions and priorities in society? :mad: absolutely ineffective in creating any actual improvement in conditions for children

It's screwed up, isn't it? Thanks to cases like this (or rather, the media attention given to them) a whole generation of kids are growing up with the idea than any adult they don't know has to be stayed well away from, on the basis that they could be abducted, raped and killed at the drop of a hat - not to mention the way, as an adult, you're made to feel like a potential nonce for merely acknowledging the existence of other people's kids.
The irony being that kids are far more likely to be abused, sexually or otherwise, by adults known to them.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
It's an assumption that the people concerned live there tho. We also had a spate of junkies leaving their needles about and falling asleep in the stairwells, and they didn't live on the estate.
 

STN

sou'wester
We also had a spate of junkies leaving their needles about and falling asleep in the stairwells, and they didn't live on the estate.

That's lame.

Did you ever issue any bollockings to them? How were they eventually made to sod off?
 

john eden

male pale and stale
That's lame.

Did you ever issue any bollockings to them? How were they eventually made to sod off?

Most of it was in the tower blocks, not my one, so fortunately I didn't really see much of it first hand (bar the odd syringe in the grass). Turns out someone was dealing from one of the flats so I think we've seen less of it since they were closed down by the cops.

I did occasionally hang about and stare at people who were trying to get into the tower block who I knew were junkies tho.

We just get kids smoking weed in our stairwell. I have mixed feelings about this cos they are basically harmless and can't smoke in public or at home because they'd get a bollocking off their parents.

But they do undeniably intimidate some of the older residents in my block - not sure if that is intentional or not. Me and partner try to discourage them without being too aggressive - pick up yr litter, don't hang about in big groups in here, don't take the piss etc. Seems to work ok.
 

don_quixote

Trent End
I'd guess it's probably a combination of all the things you mention.

As as mixed_miscuits says, it's often a constant uphill struggle for teachers to maintain any sort of order in schools as the kids have grown up in a home environment with no structure or discipline, which is then exacerbated by a school culture where it's 'sad' to obey rules, work hard, be (seen to be) clever and so on.

the people to blame for this are the "only want the best for my kid" parents who drag them out of comps to fee paying schools and leave all the others to rot. absolute scum with no sense of social responsibility.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
the people to blame for this are the "only want the best for my kid" parents who drag them out of comps to fee paying schools and leave all the others to rot. absolute scum with no sense of social responsibility.

But what if the local comprehensive has already reached the stage where the kids are carrying knives to school? Would you put 'social responsibility' above your own child's physical safety (let alone educational prospects)?
 

don_quixote

Trent End
of course! even in the worst schools these problems dont affect all students. id expect any theoretical child of mine to rise above it.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
of course! even in the worst schools these problems dont affect all students. id expect any theoretical child of mine to rise above it.

How do you "rise above" getting threatened with knives? How do you "rise above" exhausted, exasperated teachers who have to spend so much time trying to stop the kids running wild they're barely able to teach?

To be honest, I think rich parents sending their kids to fee-paying schools is probably much less bad than parents taking their kids out of 'failing' comprehensives and moving house so they can send them to a different comprehensive, since kids from poorer families are never going to attend fee-paying schools under any circumstances, but should in principle have the opportunity to attend a decent comprehensive - the problem is they are increasingly being priced out of the area by an influx of wealthier families.

As far as your own (hypothetical) kids' education goes, in a way I'd applaud you for sticking to your principles, but no-one's child should have to pay the price for decades of underfunding and misguided government policy. The kids at a rough-as-fuck school are paying that price already, but sending your own (presumably non-delinquent) kids there is at best going to 'dilute' the problem, not solve it, and could have serious consequences for your own children. Of course it's immoral to put yourself or your family at an advantage by actively screwing over someone else's chances, but in all seriousness, I think people who are prepared to put ideological principles ahead of their own children's safety aren't fit to be parents.
 
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craner

Beast of Burden
There's something fishy about that 'Maddy' thing.

Remember Mum and Dad ditching their other kids in Portugal so that they could go and visit the Pope???

Ew.
 

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
Thinking about it the lack of actual teaching that gets done is probably a good thing what with the pointless crap that passes for a curriculum.

And yes there's a simple solution if your child is experiencing problems at school.

Buy them a gun!
 
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noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
Children learn their values and attitudes from their elders.

Our culture from the top down is violent, cynical and destructive. How else do you expect them to behave?

At the same time they know there is something wrong so they end up hating everything, including themselves because they can't really make sense of the mixed messages.

It's good that they don't buy into all the bullshit wholesale, but a big shame (disastrous) if that means they feel hopeless.

Also if the media and government want to demonise young people, well that's exactly what happens.
 
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Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
easy, you dont get threatened in the first place! it's pretty easy to avoid.
You might as well say "Well so what if kids get peer-pressured into using drugs, they should just say 'no'!" or "So what if there's a prevalent gang culture, they just shouldn't get involved!". And as for saying "easy, don't get threatened" - I suppose bullying is the victim's fault for letting it happen to them, right?

no school is as bad as you are making out
I can only assume you live under a rock because the Stephen Lawrence case has been all over the news for the past week.
 

don_quixote

Trent End
I suppose bullying is the victim's fault for letting it happen to them, right?

that's rather over-simplified. all im saying is there's ways of reducing the risk.

I can only assume you live under a rock because the Philip Lawrence case has been all over the news for the past week.

odd incidents happen in odd schools, im not denying that.

i live in leicester whoever asked.
 
ive been reading the pamphlet "Freedom of the city" by ken worpole and someone else

http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/thefreedomofthecity

and theres a proposed solution for the degraded state of social housing. that is, in every estate there needs to be a permanent caretaker who resides on the premises with his family. their argument goes that its the lack of people more than anything else that is synonymous with a lack of order and appreciation, and by having a permanent caretaker on site he would be able to alert the police if anyone was doing anything dodgy (crackhouses etc...), clean after people's mess (pissing in the lifts) to the point where there wouldnt constantly be mess, and then the excuse of adding to a bad situation would have been removed.

from reading that report on youth gangs in waltham forest, it seems that when police do crack down on crackhouses the dealers are forced to change their approach and take a while to adapt and install themselves fully again, often dealing out of cars or on the street.

if these tactics, coupled together with concerted efforts against drug wholesalers - there would be a real opportunity to clamp down on the drug trade.

if there werent crackhouses and junkies dealing on estates it would raise the quality of life substantially, and also make the entry level to crime for young people slightly more remote than just outside your front door.
 

stelfox

Beast of Burden
no idea if it had anything to do with gang culture or not, but i've been on the receiving end of a shank very recently and it's not cool. (wasn't actually stabbed but was threatened with the very real possibility of it.) this was all john eden's fault, btw.
i was a long way from being liberal about this in the first place, but actual personal experience has only solidified my view that a culture of going out tooled up needs to be tackled with extreme prejudice — both as punishment for the person carrying the weapon and as a deterrent for anyone else considering carrying weapons.
it's ridiculous that a stupid argument can turn into a murder so easily in many cases. of course, there are also tons of root causes that need to be tackled, like allowing kids to have a *positive* sense of ownership of their neigbourhood, better facilities, funding for youth programs etc and this needs to be done at the same time as the tough stuff, otherwise neither will work.
the thing about this being a problem specifically based around council housing is a red herring, really, given that london is a very integrated city in many ways. rich people live next door to poor, £4 million houses sit next to sink estates and some kids not involved in gangs are carrying weapons for their own protection now, because everyone else has one. my local shopkeeper told me about having to give his kid a hiding after finding out that he'd been carrying a blade for this very reason. he's a good kid, too, and shouldn't be in a position where he feels like that, so this is a problem that affects the whole city and one that needs to be tackled even-handedly, involving all members of the community. private schooling and the fact that a significant number of londoners can insulate themselves from working-class life — until something bad happens — certainly doesn't help, either.
the thing about gang culture in london is that it's not just allegiance to a certain postcode, it's more often than not allegiance to a certain *subsection* of a certain postcode. i find it interesting that this is where grime fell down, by taking american-style neighbourhood allegiance/pride and applying it in microcosm, to such small geographical areas that it no longer worked as a susainable economic model. with london street gangs we're we're not talking about neighbourhoods being involved, we're talking about sections of certain roads and it's ridiculous. not that bigger gangs are the answer, mind. i do think it shows britain as a very parochial little place at heart, though.
 
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